


Dedication to Duty

by winter_jasmine



Series: Perception Filter Series [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 22:08:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16167848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_jasmine/pseuds/winter_jasmine
Summary: Do you ever wonder what Torchwood looks like from the outside? This is my take on a tiny moment.





	Dedication to Duty

**Author's Note:**

> First posted 2007.
> 
> Thanks to Sweet Thing for the beta.

Martha Hayden had been checking the donation boxes of the churches of Cardiff for as long as she could remember.  Sunday afternoons after lunch, Martha made her rounds like clockwork; never missing a collection, even in the rain.  First on her list, as always was the box on Bridge Street.  Recessed into the wall of the old Vicarage, now a trendy wine bar, the donation box had been there since the Nineteenth Century. With an iron front, a small opening and a catch fitted with a rather rusty padlock, it had once belonged to St Agnes’ church, now long since converted into flats after a leaking roof and a dwindling congregation had forced the church to close its doors.

 

Recently, the church council had been all for removing this box, the general feeling being that a bar was hardly a suitable, or indeed likely, location for people to be leaving money for God’s work. However Martha had managed to convince them that it was just the place for the church to have a presence, however small and unnoticed, and besides, despite its location, it wasn’t as if the donation box wasn’t being used.

 

~*~

 

It was just gone midnight, and four hours into Frank’s shift. This was always the hardest part of the night. The caffeine from his second coffee was wearing off; there was nothing much happening on the screens, most of the pubs had shut and the clubs not yet kicked out. The bank of ten monitors in front of him blinked silently, showing a different camera angle every twenty seconds.

 

Frank poured yet another cup from his flask and set his feet up on the desk, tilting the chair back slightly. Taking a swig of warm black coffee, he listened to the gentle whir of the computers, and waited for the first club to close.

 

Monitor three was just changing view when the black Range Rover came round the corner. Frank reached over lazily, taking hold of the joystick with his right hand while pushing some buttons on the monitor to return to camera seventy-nine. He followed the Range Rover along St Mary’s Street; and watched as it slowed, indicated to the non-existent traffic and then pulled into Bridge Street. He flicked to camera forty which gave a better view down the length of the street, and zoomed in to where he knew the car would stop.

 

Frank couldn’t remember when he’d first noticed the black Range Rover, or why he’d started following it. But it had become something of a ritual, just as it was for the driver. The timing wasn’t always the same; Frank had to be watching the screens or he’d miss it, but every Saturday night, or Sunday morning as it was now, the distinctive car took the same route, to stop in the same place. 

 

The brake lights of the Range Rover came on, and even from this angle, Frank knew the driver’s window was rolling down. There was a short pause and then the driver’s arm appeared, and a light-coloured envelope flashed briefly before disappearing into the wall. The arm withdrew and the car pulled away, continuing down the hill before turning left at the bottom and disappearing from camera forty.

 

According to his boss, someone had been dropping off an envelope in the dark hours between Saturday and Sunday for far longer than Frank had been working the cameras.  The cars might have changed and there were even stories of a bicycle during the war, but the deliveries had never changed. 

 

Out of curiosity, Frank had once tried to follow the car after it turned out of Bridge Street, but it wasn’t like it was on Spooks. With just him, over eighty cameras, and only ten monitors, the task was impossible.  Besides, ‘El Divo’ was just turning out, and Frank had better things to do.

  

~*~

 

Martha always knew what would be in the Bridge Street box. Shortly after starting as a church steward, back when her legs were steadier and her hair not so grey, Martha had noticed the absolute regularity with which these donations occurred, more so than any other. She’d checked in church records, for once thankful for the tedious task that required a good hour of her time every week, and she’d found that indeed, with some exceptions, and short periods of absence, a crisp cream envelope was found every week, going back longer than a generation. The dedication always the same:

 

_In Recognition of the Life of Captain Jack Harkness._

 

The key was a little stiff these days, she’d get Bill to look at that for her, perhaps a new lock might be needed. The front of the box opened, scraping the stonework of the recess as it had for over a century. Inside were the usual array of sweet wrappers and cigarette butts. Martha sighed and despaired inwardly at the ignorance of the world. But the sight of the cream envelope was, as always, enough to restore her faith in people. She swept the rest of the rubbish into a plastic bag, said a short prayer and fastened the padlock.

 

In all her time collecting this particular donation, going back decades, nothing about it had ever changed. But this week was different. The envelope was thicker than normal and out of curiosity Martha opened the flap and pulled out the contents. Inside, the usual donation was paper-clipped to an old photograph. Two handsome young men in military uniforms were pictured, shaking hands. The caption read:

 

_Captain Jack Harkness and comrade at the ‘Kiss the Boy’s Goodbye Dance’_

_The Ritz. Saturday 20 thJanuary 1941_

 

 

Martha turned the envelope over in her hand, the Copperplate script on the front, as always easy to read, even without her glasses. This time the dedication was different, it read:

 

_In Loving Memory of Captain Jack Harkness._

_“Let us to the battle”_


End file.
